It seems like in most mainstream animes that gained large popularity among fans, feature films would come out after every season. The release schedule to these franchises are mostly consistent. The best example of this is Pokémon. The Sailor Moon series looked to be fairly on point with this as well, even though the first and final season were not bookended by any films. The original Dragon Ball show run followed this rule though. After every season, a film was released which made sense in terms of execution. However, the concepts for this films were quite different. For some reason, the creatives behind it felt it was better to retell various sections of the show in a different continuity. So far for the sequel series, Dragon Ball Z, the film release is sticking closer to the show.
Fans start off with Gohan (Stephanie Nadolny), Goku’s (Sean Schemmel) son being kidnapped by a group of demonic warriors. The leader of this group is led by a character named Garlic Jr. (Chuck Huber), an individual who has a bone to pick with Kami and Piccolo (Chris Sabat). Garlic Jr.’s hope is to become immortal and destroy the world in the name of his father Garlic Sr. The original script behind Akira Toriyama’s manga adaptation goes Takao Koyama. This is the same individual behind various episodes to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. The same goes for director Daisuke Nishio and who also worked on the first two Dragon Ball films. For this feature, there are points that make it a much better start than the Dragon Ball films before it, but still not totally a bullseye.
What works for the story is that this narrative technically can work as story that comes right after the end of the last Dragon Ball season. Reason for this, it is before the arrival of Raditz, Goku’s brother, and the reveal of his now iconic origins. Additionally, the rivalry between Piccolo and Goku is the only thing spoken of during this film. So the timing stands correct. This is where the alignment ends though. Garlic Jr. and Sr. are one big missing story throughout the shows history. There is proper context given as to why Garlic Jr. seeks revenge on Kami for wronging his father but that’s the extent of it. Unfortunately, there was no actual episode depicting this character in the show, so it feels sort of just thrown in there. This last minute add feels very similar to that of how Dr. Gero would appear in the cell saga. Dr. Gero was apparently around but was never depicted.
The voice acting is great though from most performers. Sean Schemmel is the definitive English dub of Goku. The same goes for Sonny Strait as Krillin, Stephanie Nadolny as Gohan and Chris Sabat as Piccolo and Kami. Chuck Huber as the disgruntled Garlic Jr. works fine. Sadly, Huber’s voice is very recognizable and if anything, for those who can get easily confused may think Garlic Jr. is Emperor Pilaf and that’s because Huber also voices the character. There’s just not much of a distinction between the two characters and how they sound. There’s also brief voice appearances from Mike McFarland as Master Roshi, Tiffany Vollmer as Bulma, Cynthia Cranz as Chi and Dave 'Squatch' Ward as the Ox King. The animation to the film is done nicely. It is still a product of the 1990’s anime style which gives it a very nostalgic look.
In part, the action that’s animated on screen is awesome too. The hand to hand combat and Goku using his power pole are the fun parts. And there’s always one Kamehameha on screen too. Still like many other anime films, Motoaki Ikegami is credited as the cinematographer to this production. Ikegami essentially had a hand in most of the Dragon Ball films too. Why though, will go unexplained. Finally, the music to this production is a little sad to hear. Instead of Shunsuke Kikuchi’s memorable score cues being use throughout, the English dub went with a new score composed by a gentleman by the name of Mark Menza. Weirdly enough he’s not credited on IMDb but is listed in the credits of the film. Perhaps this is because he didn’t get credit for productions until the mid-90s. Either way, Menza music is okay, but just isn’t for Dragon Ball Z. It sounds like an early version of Bruce Falconer’s music to the series later on.
While the narrative starts off right with acceptable continuity compared to the first set of Dragon Ball films, it still falls short with the villain being rather random. The musical score is also recreated which isn’t necessary. Thankfully, the voice acting and animation keep it mildly okay to watch.
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